Yoimiya is the More Beginner Friendly Pick but Ganyu Offers Greater Versatility and Damage Potential

When it comes to powerful pyro and cryo five star characters, both Yoimiya and Ganyu have their strengths. But is one clearly better than the other? In this comprehensive guide, I‘ll compare their abilities, optimal teams, damage potential, and ease of use to help you decide which character you should wish for. While Ganyu ultimately edges out Yoimiya in versatility, damage ceilings, and meta viability, Yoimiya provides a more beginner friendly playstyle that many find more enjoyable and comfortable to play.

An Overview of Yoimiya and Ganyu‘s Kits

As a five star pyro bow user, Yoimiya‘s kit focuses on empowering her normal attacks through her elemental skill, elemental burst, and passives. She has access to powerful normal attack bonuses and gains pyro infusion to deal rapid fire single target pyro damage.

Ganyu is a five star cryo bow user who relies heavily on aimed charged shot damage. Her burst provides an important off-field cryo AOE while her skill taunts enemies. She can deal massive damage from a safe distance.

Here‘s a brief rundown of their abilities:

Yoimiya

• Normal Attack – Performs up to 5 rapid fire homing arrows with the last shot dealing AOE pyro damage.

• Elemental Skill – Enters a stance increasing attack speed and granting pyro infusion on normal attacks for a duration. Generates energy particles.

• Elemental Burst – Launches firework missiles that track nearby opponents, dealing AOE pyro damage.

• Passives – Increase normal attack damage, pyro damage bonus, and attack speed.

Ganyu

• Normal Attack – Perform up to 6 consecutive shots with increasing charge time. Aimed mode to fire damaging charged cryo shots.

• Elemental Skill – Taunts enemies with an icy bell and deals cryo AOE damage.

• Elemental Burst – Summons an icy lotus that pulses cryo AOE damage. Applies cryo status in an AOE.

• Passives – Grants a cryo damage bonus and increases aimed shot damage.

While both are five star bow users, their kits, ideal artifacts, weapons, and playstyles differ significantly as we‘ll explore in this guide.

Optimizing artifact sets and weapons

To maximize Yoimiya and Ganyu‘s potential, you need to equip them with artifacts and weapons that complement their kits. Here are their best gear options:

Yoimiya

• Artifacts – 4pc Shimenawa‘s Reminiscence or 4pc Crimson Witch of Flames
• Best weapons – Thundering Pulse, Rust, Hamayumi

Ganyu

• Artifacts – 4pc Wanderer‘s Troupe or 4pc Blizzard Strayer
• Best weapons – Amos‘ Bow, Skyward Harp, Prototype Crescent

Here‘s a breakdown of why these are ideal:

As you can see, Yoimiya really appreciates normal attack, pyro damage, and crit rate/damage bonuses. For Ganyu, stacking attack, cryo damage, and crit stats is key to maximizing her aimed shot damage.

Damage Potential and Scaling

Now let‘s compare their damage potential and scaling.

In terms of raw numbers, a well built Ganyu simply outputs more damage than Yoimiya in most scenarios. With the right team to enable her, Ganyu‘s aimed charge shots can consistently hit for 50-60k damage, sometimes reaching over 100k melt damage on a crit. Her burst provides a nice supplementary 20-30k damage per icicle.

Yoimiya‘s normal attacks usually hit for around 5-15k per arrow depending on investment and buffs. Her skill allows her to rapid fire these arrows to stack damage quickly in single target situations. She can vape her burst hits for 15-25k. Her overall DPS lags behind Ganyu, but she can still dish out impressive numbers with the right setup.

For AOE scenarios, Ganyu dominates thanks to her quadratic scaling charged shots that can hit multiple enemies at once. Yoimiya really only provides single target damage, though her bursts helps a bit.

In terms of ease of scaling, Ganyu ascends with crit damage making it easy to build her with high crit value. Yoimiya needs more ATK% and crit rate/damage substats to reach her damage potential.

So while Yoimiya‘s damage is solid, especially in single target, Ganyu simply operates on another level when it comes to raw damage and scaling. Her aimed charge shots are unmatched in terms of sheer numbers.

Ease of Use and Comfort

Despite Ganyu‘s higher damage potential, many players actually find Yoimiya more comfortable and beginner friendly to play. Here‘s why:

• Yoimiya‘s normal attacks auto target enemies and the arrows track slightly. This makes it easy to focus on dodging and positioning rather than aiming.

• During Yoimiya‘s skill, you can just spam normal attacks without having to think much about animation cancels or combos. Great uptime as well.

• No need to worry about energy requirements or burst uptime. Her skill is ready almost instantly after a short CD.

Compare this to Ganyu:

• Charged shot aiming takes practice to master. Missing wastes damage and stamina.

• Animation cancels on her combos requires some skill to maximize DPS.

• Needs to land her skill and burst consistently to enable reactions and provide particles. High ER requirements.

So while Ganyu offers higher damage potential, Yoimiya‘s simpler gameplay is easier to pick up for many players.

Team Synergy and Comps

For team building, Ganyu fits well into more team archetypes and synergizes with more characters compared to Yoimiya:

• Melt Ganyu with Xiangling, Bennett, Zhongli/Diona
• Freeze Ganyu with Mona/Xingqiu, Venti/Kazuha, Diona
• Sub DPS in various comps

Yoimiya really wants teammates that can:

• Provide interruption resistance via shields (Zhongli)
• Boost her normal attacks (Yun Jin)
• Enable reactions like vaporize (Xingqiu, Yelan)
• Offer damage buffs (Bennett)

So Yoimiya is a bit more team comp constrained while Ganyu offers more flexibility. This gives Ganyu an advantage in the end game spiral abyss where you need to build multiple teams.

In Summary

After this extensive comparison, hopefully you have a better understanding of each character‘s strengths and weaknesses. Here are the key takeaways:

• For raw damage numbers and versatility, Ganyu is superior to Yoimiya in most scenarios thanks to her powerful aimed shots and AOE burst.

• However, Yoimiya provides a much smoother and beginner friendly playstyle thanks to her auto targeting homing arrows and skill uptime.

• Ganyu fits well into more team comps and synergizes better with top supports. Yoimiya needs more specific teammates to enable her.

• Yoimiya excels in single target situations but can‘t match Ganyu‘s dominance in AOE.

So in conclusion, Ganyu edges out Yoimiya in terms of meta viability, versatility, and damage potential but Yoimiya is the more comfortable pick for many players. Hopefully this guide has given you the knowledge to decide whether Ganyu or Yoimiya is the better choice for your needs and playstyle!